Challenge Yourself

Thanksgiving is a good time to challenge yourself to do things you haven’t done in a while. Or ever! When my OCD was at its worst, I wasn’t doing any entertaining because of my fear of contamination. It was such a struggle to get through cooking a meal for someone other than my husband and son that I just gave up.

I loved making cookies for my son and husband and I to take to school and work every holiday and I even gave that up. I had my husband make simple dishes when we needed to take something to a potluck.

Gradually, I challenged myself to prepare potluck dishes myself. First, I helped my husband rather than just giving strict clean instructions and worked my way up to making dishes myself. We can both see the humor in some of my demands: Don’t touch this or that; Did you wash your hands? Did I touch that? What if I did? One time, after I had finally gotten to the point of putting together a dish myself, I threw out two sets of pickles and olives before I finally got it right.

Years ago, I went to an OCD support group. I took cookies I had baked. That was my challenge. Another woman’s challenge was eating food she considered possibly contaminated. What to do? She touched the floor with a cookie and ate it!

Those days seem like a lifetime away. Today, I entertain. We have people over for dinner. I prepare food for others. The fears have vanished. I applied exposure and response prevention to my fears. And I prayed and gave my fears to God. With time, I reached a point where I felt comfortable with the risks. The rewards of fellowship with friends, helping others, having a festive atmosphere created by shared meals, etc – all this made the risks seem fewer.

How will you challenge your OCD this Thanksgiving?

Be Thankful

I hope you all are enjoying this season. If you are struggling with OCD or another anxiety disorder, take a moment to think back on where you were last year, or maybe just last week or yesterday if you’re really new to treatment. Thank God for the small steps and the big steps you’ve been able to take.             

Tell me what you’re thankful for this year.

Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge

New Book Lauched

Check out my page at Author Central on Amazon.com. Every blog entry should be showing up there too. If I plugged in the RSS feed correctly. We’ll see. I’m kind of guessing at all this. My coauthor Bruce Hyman and I are launching The OCD Workbook, Third Edition. Since it was first published in 1999, The OCD Workbook has sold more than 100,000 copies and emerged as one of the most popular resources for people seeking to overcome obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

This new edition has been fully revised and updated with the latest research findings on the causes of OCD, advancements in medications for the disorder, and new promising treatments including mindfulness-based stress reduction and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). Additionally, this third edition features additional material to help family members deal more positively and effectively with OCD in a loved one. It explains how children with OCD can be effectively treated, and offers steps for parents to help their children overcome OCD.

The OCD Workbook, Third Edition is now available. Since it was first published in 1999,The OCD Workbook has sold more than 100,000 copies and emerged as one of the most popular resources for people seeking to overcome obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

This new edition has been fully revised and updated with the latest research findings on the causes of OCD, advancements in medications for the disorder, and new promising treatments including mindfulness-based stress reduction and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). Additionally, this third edition features additional material to help family members deal more positively and effectively with OCD in a loved one. It explains how children with OCD can be effectively treated, and offers steps for parents to help their children overcome OCD.